Picture shows ‘Mosterdgas’ Casualties at Béthune, northern France 10th April 1918
A Trooper was Tom Cammock, in the Royal Horse Artillery
Who faced the Boer and German, far across the sea
Riding on the lead horse, with cannon behind the team
A little man fulfilling, everyone’s heroic dream
Bullet, shell or sabre, never found this Ulster son
It was the germ Malaria, that took him from his gun
Having fought in Africa succeeding to survive
Was years after sent to France and still remained alive
But there the Foeman got him, by devious means alas
Using the putrid killer, known as Mustard Gas
With bandaged eyes he left, that bloody battlefield
A half blinded future, fate for him had sealed
As a boy I watched him, shuffling along by the Gasworks wall
That unsung little Hero, who one time rode so tall
Shoulders raised to take more air, in lungs seared long before
He’d seen his days of glory and drove the horse no more
He dwelt for thirty years and more, at his Belfast abode
In the Street of Havelock, just off the Ormeau Road
With his wounds he suffered, the years filled with pain
Until the Lord called him home, a life not lived in vain
Viewing those marching Veterans and on hearing the bugle call
I see Trooper Cammock on the lead horse, mounted proud and tall
In conflict as a youth and man, on a foreign field
Emblazoned in his nature, to not give way or yield
Monty Alexander 21.11.96